Berlin nightlife in pictures

I never get tired of reading first hand accounts of life in Berlin during the Cold War.

But the only thing shocking or revelatory about these photos is how ordinary they all look.  Plus or minus a hairdo or two, just about any of them could have been taken in any year from the 1970's until today.  I did a double take on the B/W photo from the 1992 Love Parade, which I would have pegged for something from 1975 without a second thought.  You can't blame the author/collator Stefanie Seidl for false advertising though -- she says in the accompanying interview that the photos weren't about capturing the biggest celebs but about "conveying an authentic atmosphere".  There's a powerful take home message in there.  Maybe you need to know the right people or the super secret way to dress to get into the most prestigious clubs, but no matter where you end up partying in the end, the essential, authentic Berlin is everywhere, you can find it without hardly trying.  You can't say that about New York, Paris, or just about anywhere else.

Somehow this article about repetition in music feels appropriate to be paired with a story about the nightlife in Berlin.  Read the whole thing, but in particular, I've experienced "semantic satiation" a number of times and never knew (but should have assumed) that it was a real, scientifically studied effect.  

Lady Gaga at SXSW

NPR's Ann Powers posted a commentary about Lady Gaga's interview at SXSW.  It's a bit cynical and pessimistic, but she makes a number of interesting points.  What's lost in her commentary (aside from a single offhand admission that Gaga is "far more interesting than what 95 per cent of mainstream pop produces") is that even her appearance at an event like SXSW was something unthinkable even five years ago.  The fact that major pop artists make a point reaching out to an audience at what used to be more of a niche underground festival is a victory of sorts.  The playing field is more level than it's ever been, and spending millions of dollars to promote your album is less of a sure thing than it once was, and "ARTPOP"'s relatively poor sales are a perfect example of that.  Of course, "Lady Gaga appears at SXSW" is a marketing ploy too, where major artists go in the hope that some hipster cred will rub off on them.  That's true no matter how many times Gaga says that she's not manufactured and would happily go back to slumming it in New York rather than play processed music she's not passionate about.

Anyhow, Lady Gaga and Depeche Mode at SXSW in consecutive years is exciting in a way that a festival stacked with unknown bands hoping that their names go viral on Twitter isn't.

Her insistence about "not fitting into a mold" is worded to seem profound, but actually it's a totally conventional path to superstardom.  Great artists break the mold and set themselves apart from the background noise of whatever else is in the charts.  Famously, Avril Lavigne and Pink refused to conform to music industry standards and didn't fit a mold when they eventually broke big.  

The biggest Gaga-related news out of SXSW -- besides getting thrown up on by Millie Brown -- is the "don't sell out, sell-in" statement which probably would have been reported using sensationalist headlines about how "Gaga hearts mega-corporations!!" if she hadn't belittled that kind of sleazy reporting during the interview.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with accepting the support of a patron, and the arts have depended on rich patrons for hundreds of years.  The value is in the association with the artist, not with forcing the artist into striking a pose that's tailored exactly to the need to market a product.  Gaga's comments have been twisted to seem like they're daring or controversial when they really aren't, and that's not at all her fault -- she seems to truly "get" how the industry works, and the press falls for the same traps every time.

Kassem Mosse, "Workshop 19"; Lucy, "Churches, Schools, and Guns"

Leftfield, experimental house looks to be peaking right now.  It's a catch-all term that means different things to different people and I'm not clear on the definition either. But fortunately, these days it seems to be applied less and less to pop-orientted blog house and more toward the "anything can happen at any time in this track" club music that has made Terre Thaemlitz AKA DJ Sprinkles an unlikely star.  BTW, where does Thaemlitz going from purveyor of wibbly ambient to a big name in house music -- over the course of TWENTY years -- rank among the most remarkable and unpredictable comebacks in electronic music?  

"Workshop 19" reminds me of those marvelous cassette tape recordings of 80's Hacienda or Warehouse sets that have been known to pop up on the internet, where everything sounded underproduced, the bass or treble would tend to vanish without warning, and eclecticism was a constant theme.  Unfortunately, most of the tracks here are too short to get their message across.  His earlier singles are wondrous for the way they let the groove breathe often for well over ten minutes, and you just can't capture that hypnotic effect in only five or six minutes.

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I can't believe I'm about to write this, but "Churches, Schools, and Guns" is mostly an album of looping, abstract, club unfriendly minimalism and it might be too abstract and too minimal even for me.  As an exercise in crafting dense and chunky techno it makes for an intriguing listen, but you'll need to be in a patient mood before you sit down with it.  The vaguely Hallucinator-like "Laws and Habits" is a change of gears that threatens to launch the album properly, but the spooked-out horror techno of "Follow the Leader" and "Catch Twenty Too" ratchet the mood right back down again to something unfriendly and fierce.  "The Illusion of Choice" is possibly the most conventional banger here, and it's followed up by "We Live As We Dream"'s static-y beats and echo-heavy, barely there looping melodies that could have been lifted from Autechre's fluffiest album "Amber".  I was expecting a more club-oriented album and I got something that'll take quite a bit of deciphering.

Magnetic Fields, "Strange Powers" (documentary)

I finally saw this Magnetic Fields documentary that was released a little over three years ago.  The reviews were generally quite positive, but I feel that was mainly out of respect for Stephin Merritt's body of work. I didn't get a "this is a must see doc" vibe from anyone. My own views are a bit more negative, out of the reviews I read, I identify most strongly with Mike Hale's take in the NYT.

My main issue is that I don't particularly understand for whom this documentary was made.  It's not for the casual music fan who's never heard of the Magnetic Fields, because the documentary makes almost no effort to explain what makes their songs so great or what makes their fanbase tick (save for the odd comment by a Peter Gabriel or Sarah Silverman).  It's not for the hardcore fan who's looking to peek behind the curtain, because all the principals (especially Merritt) are a bit too aloof and cynical to let their guard down.

There are a number of memorable moments in the film.  Seeing the band record songs in Stephin's chaotic mess of an apartment is a treat.  In some sense it de-glamourizes the songs but that's more than compensated by the way the recording humanizes the people involved. I couldn't help but smile at the way Stephin completely recreated the atmosphere of his New York studio apartment when he moved to Los Angeles at the end of the film.

Kudos to Sasha Frere-Jones for appearing on camera to say "mea culpa" for the racism allegations from 2006.

However, deep insights into the minds of band members are rare.  Sam Davol's admission that he isn't friends with Merritt -- even after twenty years playing in bands together -- was a refreshing and fairly shocking admission for any band documentary, especially one like this that is 99% feel good content.  He simply feels that it's best for band chemistry if the members know how keep an appropriate distance from each other.  This was also the take-home message behind the film's most poignant moment.  After Stephin's move to LA, we see Claudia Gonson looking lonely in NY, clearly missing her best friend like crazy but trying to be supportive of the change because she knows that it's best for Merritt.

Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 18

"Each stage of a Lyot mix is one half the size of the preceding stage" (63 minutes)

I've been meaning to record something similar to Episode 8 for a while -- something danceable (i.e. beatmatched) but also eclectic and SHORT (under one hour).  Sometimes you don't have any tolerance to take an epic journey and would rather listen to a bite-sized mix instead.

There aren't a lot of things I would change about this one.  The end result was almost exactly what I was aiming for.  

Each stage of a Lyot mix is one half the size of the preceding stage by Bruiserfs on Mixcloud

Dance music blows up

Around 1994 (my memories are fuzzy), Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a greatest hits collection and the Smiths released or rereleased some compilation or other (it may have been "18 Singles" in the spring of 1995, but it doesn't really matter for the story).  Both bands were long since defunct, and had recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their landmark albums "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" and "The Smiths".  One of the big UK  music mags (I think it was the NME, but again, it's not so important for the story) lumped the reviews together into one and took the opportunity to compare the legacies of the two bands.

Britpop was massive at the time, and "X is the best British band since the Smiths" was a catchphrase that was tired on arrival, but was still used regularly as a lead-in about a band that the papers desperately wanted to promote.  Reviews of each album were generally positive (cash grab or not, the best of both bands are unfuckwithable) but the essence of the review was that the Smiths still sounded fresh and contemporary, while FGTH were a horribly dated relic of the 1980's.

It's now twenty years later (was it really that long ago???) and I'd say the roles are reversed.  In an era where dance music has successfully infiltrated pop music production and the (admittedly catch-all) genre of electronic music is legitimately huge in its own right,  Frankie's brand of slick, provocative dancefloor bangers seems far ahead of its time.  The Smiths, OTOH, now look like quaint, sleepy products of the 80's, back when being an indie rock band meant having a defeatist attitude and wouldn't dare to dream about ever playing to more than a few hundred people at a time. You toiled away in noble obscurity and the idea of "not selling out" was worn like a badge of honour.  Morrissey's personal war against all forms of dance music doesn't make him look good in the eyes of history either -- I mean, he always looked silly taking these cartoonish stances about how "dance music is killing everything!", but in the 90's he still had a lot of defenders, whereas now even his staunchest fans won't back him up on that or just about any political or social issue he's ranted about in the years since.

And thus, "indie rock" is now regularly used in ads for cars and fast food, while EDM is arguably the hottest brand of music in North America.  Michaelangelo Matos' piece in SPIN gives a great deal of insight into how EDM is marketed, the types of people doing the marketing, and those making the A&R decisions.   It also explains -- perhaps better than any other article I've seen on this subject --  how the usual way of doing business was forced to change in order to sell this music properly.  The majors were clueless about this in the 90's -- they tried to sell electronica as if it was rock or hip-hop via flashy videos pushed into high rotation on MTV and a big emphasis on albums.  The club and vinyl culture aspect of it was completely ignored, and the idea that your top artists could be your best A&R people was absurd.  The evolution of the industry is a major focus of the SPIN article.

It's still not clear to me why this music has gotten so big.  It may be too soon for a definitive history,  but in an age where music is dissected everywhere on the internet within hours of its release, maybe it shouldn't be.  In '91, it was easy to point to Nirvana and say that they were the spark behind a shift in music tastes, but such straightforward analysis is exceedingly rare these days.  That's especially true for the dance music scene, which was already so delocalized even before the internet and file sharing changed listening habits forever.  In another era, you'd say that David Guetta and Calvin Harris produced smash hits for superstar artists and dragged EDM kicking and screaming into the mainstream, but that shoe doesn't seem to fit here.  Timbaland and The Neptunes connected EDM with hip-hop and were insanely influential while doing so, but you can't draw a line between "I"m a Slave 4 U" and anything on a David Guetta album.  Eurodance was huge in the 90's (and remains underrated) and the promotion was all about the single, the investment in artists as long term projects (rather than something thrown together in the studio for the producer's benefit) simply wasn't there. 

Or maybe FGTH invented everything ...

Mogwai, "Rave Tapes"; Xiu Xiu, "Angel Guts:Red Classroom"

Both of these bands received Album of the Year "honours" from me (Mogwai '99, Xiu Xiu '04), stayed on a hot streak for a few years (according to me, and the judging by the praise and attention they received in the music press) and eventually sunk into a rut of relative indifference.  Only their fans take notice when they release an album these days, and although that's not so unusual when you've reached your eighth (Mogwai) or ninth (Xiu Xiu) album, they've also brought it on themselves by happily confining themselves to their own little microgenres and releasing essentially the same album several times over.  

The problem with Mogwai post-2003 is one of diminishing returns.  They can write these keyboard lullaby tracks like "Heard About You Last Night" in their sleep these days, and the results were a lot better the first few times they recorded them ("Take Me Somewhere Nice", "Hunted By a Freak", most of "The Hawk Is Howling").  After a few false starts (e.g. "My Father My King") they threatened to become a full time metal band around the time of "Mr Beast", but outside of a few killer tracks where they got it exactly right, they proved to be average at best at doing metal, and at this point the novelty of hearing them aim in that direction is long gone.

There's a noticeable lack of loud guitars on this album.  "Come On Die Young" is still their quietest album, but it was packed with tension and built toward thundering climaxes that paid off the patience of the listener.  There's no payoff, no final destination to "Rave Tapes".  You can be quiet and still be intense, which "Come On Die Young" pulled off beautifully, but "Rave Tapes" is mostly no-frills easy listening -- I keep putting it on and 90% of it simply fades into the background as I go about whatever else I'm doing.

The best thing about "Rave Tapes" might be the album cover, and it's too bad the music didn't take its cues from 70's prog too ("Remurdered"'s not to Krautrock aside).  The experiment might not have worked, but it would have been an interesting risk worth taking.

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I'm not sure why it took so long for Xiu Xiu to morph into Suicide.  The elements were always there -- robotic, jackhammer beats; lo-fi electronics and blistering, often uncomfortable noises, and a charismatic frontman with a half speaking/half singing delivery that becomes an acquired taste.  All that was needed was to take the extra step, go full on "Rocket USA", and churn out songs like "Stupid In the Dark" and "The Silver Platter".  And from there it's a quick left turn into 90's Skinny Puppy on the industrial squelch of "Lawrence Liquors".  Elsewhere, "EL Naco" is like Speak And Spell-era Depeche Mode after it's been left out in the arid desert to rot, its once sunny synth pop tones having long since been taken over by madness.

Jamie Stewart's vocal and lyrical styles remain as twisted and unconventional as ever.  "Black Dick" has a chorus that consists of just those two words repeated (or rather, stuttered and spat out) over and over.  "Cinthya's Unisex" finds him huffing mind bending lines like "Oh God, you're so confused when you're ... cute", and losing his mind with screams of "nononononono" and  seconds later "yesyesyesyesyes".  Then he throws a tantrum over hickeys, as if he's poisoned by the memories of them, and finally ends up whimpering "I hate everyone but you" helplessly a few times as the machine drum beats pile on relentlessly.  And "Botanica de Los Angeles" might be Xiu Xiu's best "pop" song since "I Luv the Valley OH!".

Xiu Xiu are can still be frustrating, because their tendencies to shock and be abrasive can overwhelm their songs.   But they're challenging even their most devoted fans to buy into what they're doing, that's for sure.  They're trying, which is more than you can say for Mogwai.

Grading the Grammy Performances

I'll be skipping over the majority of the approximately 2543 performances from the show and will write about only the most interesting ones, namely, the very best and worst of the night.  You can assume that anything that isn't listed here grades around a C or low B.

Lorde, "Royals".  D.  Anyone under the age of 20 has no business performing on the Grammys wearing the kind of clothes my mom would wear on a night out in the late 1980's.  On a night that's usually dominated by bombastic performances, unlikely collaborations, and outrageous costumes, some people might claim that Lorde's no frills rendition of "Royals" was a breath of fresh air.  The problem is that watching the kitchen sink get thrown into every onstage segment is about 90% of the reason to watch the Grammys.  

Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons, "m.A.A.d City/Radioactive".  A-.  Like Jay-Z getting inexplicably saddled with Linkin Park at the Grammys several years ago, this collaboration was surprisingly, shockingly great.   Lamar was on an absolute mission to impress people and steal the show.

Ringo Starr, "Photograph".  B+. There is no conceivable reason for Ringo Starr to give a solo performance on a major awards show in 2014  (or 2004, or 1994 ...), but I couldn't stop smiling while watching this.  The Beatles scrapbook photos were nostalgic in the best way and everyone on stage looked like they were having a blast.

Robin Thicke and Chicago, "Chicago Medley/Blurred Lines". F. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the conversation between Robin Thicke and the Grammy organizers ... "we know that having Pharrell on stage to perform your megahit would be the best thing for your career, but he's booked elsewhere.  Hey don't worry though, we got you the next best thing ... Chicago!"

Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, Stevie Wonder, "Get Lucky".  A+. I can't think of anything else I could possibly want in an awards show performance -- a dream collaboration that actually makes perfect sense, a cool mashup(s), and everybody from Jay-Z to Keith Urban to Yoko Ono dancing along with it.  If you found something to dislike about this (yes, even Pharrell's ranger hat) then we can't be friends.

Metallica and Lang Lang, "One". D-. The lighting and visuals deserve an A, but the two musical halves meshed together like oil and water.  There was nothing collaborative about this at all -- barring the brief piano solo interlude, each act performed as if the other wasn't even there.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, with Miranda Lambert, Madonna, and Queen Latifah, "Same Love".  C-.  They pulled out all the stops to make this into an EVENT and judging by the tears from some of the audience members, it worked.  But look beyond all the (church) bells and whistles, and the performance was lacking in substance because the performers are simply not that good.  Even the usually reliable Madonna sounded off her game.  Elton John and Eminem made a much more significant breakthrough a decade ago because both are awesome, the air was full of tension, and nobody expected the lions to lie down with the lambs, but somehow they did and sounded great together.  Macklemore's performance was about everybody slapping each other's backs and feeling good about themselves for being so progressive, even CBS, who got to present themselves as open minded and caring despite somehow avoiding showing any same sex couples kissing.

Nine Inch Nails, QOTSA, Dave Grohl, Lindsay Buckingham, "Whatever this 'jam' session was supposed to be".  F.  Trent Reznor was pissed about CBS cutting them off (and you can't blame him ... the ceremony lasts a million years, so what's another two minutes of airtime to let your closing act finish up?) but they actually did him a favour, because this performance was a train wreck from start to aborted finish.  Buckingham's picking sounded hokey over Reznor's industrial thrash.  At the close of a never ending awards show, once the pressure is finally off and the winners are revealed, people want to stretch their legs, smile, and dance a bit.  This performance was the polar opposite of that.

Shlomi Shabat @ Heychal HaTarbut (23/01/2014)

About two thirds of the way into his nearly two hour set, Shlomi Shabat started receding into the background, in danger of becoming a mere guest at the party he was supposed to be hosting. He's an impassioned singer who wouldn't be confused with a flamboyant performer. He sings with his heart on his sleeve but without any excess hollering or stage acrobatics. So with a nine piece backing band cranking out a powerful hybrid of Spanish/Turkish party music, he was in danger of being outshone by the noise and hoopla going on around him. On the other hand, you can't exactly ignore that none of the three thousand people in the hall that night would have been dancing in the aisles and in their seats without Shlomi Shabat as the figurehead at the helm of the songs.

His beautifully structured set was neatly divided into "quiet" and "loud" halves. The first half(the crooner part) featured one hit ballad after another, interspersed with a few lighthearted stories . Having gotten the emotional stuff (including all of my favourite songs by him) out of the way, the dance party went full speed ahead in the second half. The audience could finally let loose and this seemed to be what most of them were waiting for -- they'll tolerate the radio-friendly sheen of "Ani Shar" to get to the full-on danceable songs.  You can't fault the strategy though, beginning with the mellower hits to get people settled into their seats, then raising the tempo and building toward the big finish.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a two hour concert that flew by so quickly. And my cynicism about Shlomi Shabat as an arena-sized performer were dispelled by the end of the night. When the concert was over, I no longer doubted that he could pull off the Park HaYarkon concert that he's planning for the upcoming summer.

Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 17

"The Outer Space Science mix with cooing French Lyrics"  -- 114 minutes

It had been a while since I'd done a mix like this one -- a completely free-flowing set of music with absolutely no preconceived idea of what I wanted to do.  I didn't look at a watch or clock throughout and didn't even have a concept of how long the mix was until it was finished.  What is presented here is the one and only take, with no editing other than the occasional smoothing of transitions between non-beatmatched songs.

The outer space science mix with cooing French lyrics by Bruiserfs on Mixcloud